I took a chance this afternoon that there would some activity at Finzel Swamp, MD even though it was cloudy at home. I arrived at 3:30pm and it was cloudy and 68 degrees. By 4:30pm however the Sun broke out for a little while and the butterfly activity picked up. My target was Black Dash which is univoltine and flies now in the higher elevations. It only took me about 10 minutes to walk back towards the large pond where there was still Milkweed in bloom. On the Milkweed were numerous species including Great Spangled Fritillaries, Aphrodite Fritillaries, worn Northern Broken Dash, Dun Skippers, a male and female Delaware Skipper and seven of the hoped for Black Dash. Black Dash has a nice red-brown ground coloration when fresh. It also shows a backwards “3” pattern on the VHW. I was happy to find this butterfly as it took me over the 100 species mark for the season for the immediate region (MD,WV,VA,DE,NJ). Hopefully there will be a few more species before the season winds down. Also of note were three species for satyrs (Northern Pearly-eye, Common Wood-Nymph, and Appalachian Brown).
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